You can use Dreamweaver to add a text-only navigation bar to an HTML document in your local site with very little effort.

View a text-only navigation bar created in Dreamweaver and click each link to display the associated page.

Example 1: Text-only navigation bar made in Dreamweaver

To create a basic text-only navigation bar in Dreamweaver, start with a document in the site you want to navigate, or create a new site and new document.

Place the text for navigation bar links directly in the HTML document, or create a table and enter text in the table cells, as in the example above. Using table cells gives you more control over the placement of the text links on the page. With table cells you can also add a background color to each button for a more visually interesting navigation bar. For information on working with tables, see Creating Tables in Dreamweaver 3 online Help.

After entering text for the links, use the Property Inspector to assign a link destination for each button (see Creating links in Dreamweaver 3 online Help). In the example, different colors are specified for new unvisited links and visited links (see Defining default text colors in Dreamweaver 3 online Help).

Note: Browser preferences can override the formatting choices specified in Dreamweaver, including text link color and table cell background color. The colors you specify may not appear for all your viewers.

By default, a linked file appears in the current window or frame when the link is clicked. You can also use HTML frames in your document to specify that the linked file open in another frame in the current document, or in a new window. In the example, frames are used to display the navigation bar on the left side of the page, and display the linked file for each navigation button on the right side of the page. With this method, the navigation bar remains visible on the page even as other documents are displayed in the browser.

Dreamweaver creates the HTML code that specifies the text link color, the link destination file and the location where it will open, the table parameters (if used) and other specifications. View the HTML code for the Dreamweaver navigation bar example.

This excerpt from the Dreamweaver-generated HTML code specifies the following parameters:

	the text color for new and visited links ( link and vlink )
	the table cell background color ( td bgcolor )
	the text link font ( font face )
	the linked file ( a href )
	the target frame where the linked file will appear ( target )
	the link text ( LINK 1 )